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Thursday, October 22, 2015

Review: SHAANDAAR

SHAMEdaar!1/2 starMini Review:There is a singular lack of original thought in this almost parody of movies movie. Such a shame that they took Haider and Veera Tripathi and turned them into caricatures. This film is like an auntyji dressed in a mini skirt. It's comes with giant hastags: #failed and #desperate (spelled 'despo').Main Review:Trouble with this movie is that there is no single original thought driving the story and the holes in the characters and plot are so wide you could drive a bus through them...A rich family attempts to get their daughter married to another rich family in a big splashy wedding to hide that they are really bankrupt. The other rich family is also just as bankrupt.Movies as old as the hills ('Lady For A Day' to The Titanic) use this mock millionaire trope. But I'm sure the directors and the producers have never heard the dialog: Naam toh suna hoga...Oh also, the filmmakers have not watched Lea De Laria from Orange Is The New Black strip, or watched the viral video of Amy Pence Brown (a large woman stripping down to say she likes being fat and she feels beautiful... What is worse, Halloween H2O, a mostly forgettable film did the dialog about fat girl liking food way better than in this movie. Sarah says, 'I love food. I hope you won't mind if I get really big and dumpy. It's like my life's ambition.' Here, the large bride vacillates between being sad and fat and being happy and fat. I wish the filmmakers had watched Chicago and had drawn inspiration from Queen Latifah's Matron 'Mama' Morton character, or from the obvious reference to My Big Fat Greek Wedding.Like I said, there is nothing original here...And, it's Dussehra time, so Vikas Behl draws inspiration from Hanuman and hopes it will attract audiences a tad older when he animates flashbacks. But he forgets that the audiences have already been skewered by an animated parrot as far back as Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon. Obviously Mr. Behl and his entire unit have not seen the recent release Puli which also has a frog, and that's why they do not know the sweet Aalia Bhatt holding a frog is NOT going to be cute. An uncomfortable looking Pankaj Kapoor has to spout dialog like, 'Main tumhara baap hoon...' to Shahid, who is back to hamming in attempt to gain back the young girls who used to sigh all over his photographs before he was married. Shahid, who is shown to speak perfectly normal English with cops, is suddenly shown to not comprehend 'Insomniac'. A young fashion design student Hemanti, who was sitting next to me in the theater, sighed and said, 'After Haider, he does this?!'A sentiment I echoed about Aalia as well. After Highway, she chooses this?And the language... Oh, the language they use... The 'OMGs', 'Like Totallys' on anyone over ten (okay, twelve) saying it is like watching auntyjis in mini skirts. And it's not funny. Truly not funny. Plus, they were so lazy, they didn't even use the urban dictionary to check that 'Preggers' is a word from the 70s and the 80s. Today, it's 'in the duff' and other unpalatable words... I'm surprised they did not use 'Lol' as a verb...

Obviously the whole team had a super holiday living it up in some European castle (smaller budgets take Wedding Pullav to Thailand), and did not have to put in any effort at all. After all, it has comedy! The Punjab-Sindh connect is funny without ever cracking a joke, na? But they have the 'other' Kapoor to caricature Anil Kapoor's character in movies like Welcome (which of course the filmmakers have not seen) to fall back on. He's loud and funny. NOT. And neither is the very, very lame take on Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron dead body joke. Even Singh Is Kinng uses the inert Javed Jafferi on a wheelchair in funnier ways than here.Maybe they have not seen that movie either...Such a shame! They would have spared themselves the agony of the lazy, tedious, humorless blingy junk they have made.

If you know anyone who boasts about being high on 'shrooms' or 'organic cookies', be sure to show them this movie. They will be cured of the habit (of boasting). In fact, the 'episode' is so badly done, the government could use the clips in de-addiction camps. Although I cringed into my coffee cups (bless the PVR ECX Andheri lads who brought me coffee after coffee without complaining) to see cliches like pillow feathers flying everywhere after hero and heroine fight 'playfully', a gay uncle who designs clothes, motorbike inside the room (such a big castle, he had to park the bike inside the room?!) (not to be reminded of motorbike inside an apartment in a hi-rise in Pyaar Ka Punchnama2), and a self obsessed gym rat groom (the filmmakers never imagined it to be a well established trope), there is one shining beacon in this movie.The half star goes to the happy dance by Aalia Bhatt on the song Eena Meena Dika.You're so drained by the effort of watching the movie you secretly wonder if Aishwarya Rai's green Jazbaa will be the Mother India for this generation... There's no 'Shaan' but only Shame' in making such a terrible movie. P.S. This week, Vin Diesel brings you his spectacularly awful Last Witch Hunter. You wish he'd show up in this movie and kill the idiotic kid who shows up randomly with a bow and arrow...